As I Lay Me Down To Sleep
by HeartOfAshes
Summary: Memories bind the Noah together as a family, but there's far more to the family than that. The First Child Awakens. Part one of the Stages of Awakening series.
1. Prologue

A/N: There is so little known about the Noah so far that after thinking about it for a long time I decided to explore some of the possibilities of how they awakened and first met. While I'll be doing my best not to contradict canon, most of what's written here is my own conjecturing about them.

***

She was on her own in her own little world, created just for her. She wasn't lonely though, in spite of being the only one there. Brightly coloured candles lit the open space, as enormous or small as she wished it to be, walls receding into the distance. A world of dreams that seemed so much more real to her than the real world.

She laughed softly to herself as she rocked backwards and forwards in a creaky rocking chair, made to look ever so similar to another one which she had seen so many times before. Toys and dolls and presents filled the corners of the room, all for her, each one just as she'd dreamed it to be.

The rooms she created hadn't changed all that much over time, ever since that first room so long ago, created in a whirlwind of delight and imagination, and to a backdrop of applause from the one she was displaying her newfound powers to. Back then the rooms meant something different to what they did now. Everything a little girl could want to be happy, a security blanket against a world which had been revealed to be too harsh to bear.

What _had_ changed was her. But that was something she didn't like thinking about, ever having been _other_ than what she was now. Being the only one for such a long time, fussed over and coddled as something precious, but alone even when not quite alone. Laughter echoed differently around her room back then, ringing more hollow than it did now, but with a promise of others to come soon, to join her.

The same promises that he made to her as she sat on his lap, rocked by the gentle motions of the chair. They used to spend hours that way, and he'd tell her everything, his voice a jolly sound, or a soft hum, depending on what he'd say. He'd speak to her of everything he knew, what he remembered, what they would do. What they were meant for, and all that that was going to happen.

She never paid as much attention to his words as when he spoke about the ones who were yet to come. Brothers and sisters for her to play with, he promised, and he'd take her with him to meet each and every one of them as they woke up. They'd be like her, see things the same way as she did, but they'd be different in their own right as well.

He'd kept that promise too. With the first one she'd said nothing, reminded too painfully of her own Awakening. She'd just watched, reaching out with tiny fingers to gently pat a cheek smeared with blood dripping down from fresh stigmata, as the Earl quietly spoke, the same things he'd said to her when she'd been the one lying there in pain. With the next one it became easier, and she'd talk to them too, offering what comfort she could with a smile on her face because she knew it got better soon.

Now there was laughter outside the walls of her room as well as within them, grinning and playing tricks and squabbling and _family _and she can forget the quiet times. She spends more time outside her worlds than inside them these days.


	2. 1 The Weight of Water

"Road! Road, where are you?"

She could hear her mother calling for her from where she was playing in the street with other children her age. With a wave goodbye she rushed up the steps to her house, holding up the edges of her skirt so that she wouldn't trip over the hem.

"Oh Road, how many times do I have to tell you?" her mother asked her once she arrived in front of her, breathless and in a mess. Her hair was escaping from the long braid down her back, and her face and hands were dirty, so much so that it was obscuring the tan she had from all the hours playing outside in the sun.

"Sorry." Road apologized in a quiet voice once she got her breath back. She brushed uselessly at the stains on her dress as her mother tut-tutted in dismay. Their clothes may have been threadbare and well-mended, but at least she prided herself on how clean and neat she could keep herself and her family. Not an easy feat when her children were out playing in the streets at all hours of the day.

She waved her daughter along into another room. "Go and tidy up before your father gets home. See if your sister has a clean dress to lend you for now."

Road went into the bedroom she shared with her younger sister and brother. They were both in there already. Her little brother was sitting at the edge of a mattress that served as their bed trying to figure out how to tie his laces, and her sister was combing the tangles out of her long dark hair.

"Mama asked me to see if you've got a dress to lend me." She told her sister, tugging at the ends of her hair affectionately.

"It's over there." Her sister mumbled with the ends of her ribbon in her mouth as she finished tying back her hair. "Don't get a hole in it again!"

"I won't, I won't." She quickly changed into the clean dress, which was a little bit too long for her. Road and her sister were close enough in age that there was only a small difference in height between them. Her brother, on the other hand, was just five years old, much younger than both of the sisters.

Road knew that soon enough her mother and father would have to send her off to work to help support the family. Even children younger than her were put to work these days, and she only had her mother's strong attachment to her to thank for still being able to spend her days at home with her siblings. She intended to make the most of it, and not for the first time resolved to spend less time outside playing with her friends and more time helping her mother with the housework. It just seemed like such a waste of time to be cooped up indoors when the sun was shining and the other children's laughter called her outside to play.

She heard the front door close and the heavy sound of her father's footsteps enter the house. Her little brother immediately rushed out of the room, laces still undone, eager to greet his father. They were close in the same way that Road and her mother were. Road's sister, on the other hand, got along well with both her parents.

"Girls, your father's home!" she heard her mother call out.

As she went past the threshold of their room to go and greet him, a wave of dizziness overtook her. She grabbed hold of the doorjamb, shaking hard, but it wasn't enough to stop her from falling to her knees. In the distance she could hear her sister's cry of dismay and her mother's worried voice, but that faded away as another scene swam before her vision.

It was horrifying, screams and pain assaulting her mind, and suddenly she felt herself crushed as if underneath an enormous weight of water. She choked as it filled her lungs, and then cried out, hands grabbing hold of her shoulders, burning hot, searing her skin. They were shaking her furiously and suddenly she felt her face snap to the side as something struck her.

She opened her eyes again to find herself sprawled on the floor, her father's hand still raised from the slap he'd given her to bring her to her senses. Her little brother was crying in fright, hiding his face in their mother's apron, whose hands were held to her mouth in shock. Her sister crouched next to her, gently helping her to her feet and asking if she was all right, but Road couldn't bring herself to answer.

The things that she'd just seen were too fresh in her mind, and somehow familiar. Déjà vu, or a dimly remembered nightmare. She forced a smile onto her face and apologized for frightening her family. She didn't want them to worry about her, the way the looks on their faces told her they were.

Later on, as they sat at the table, her sister whispered in her ear.

"Was it the same thing that made you call out in your sleep last night?"

Road looked at her in surprise, and shook her head. She didn't even remember that, even if somehow it felt wrong, she _had_ been having nightmares lately. She never remembered them in the morning though.

The next few days grew progressively worse. She started remembering the nightmares, and her sister would try and comfort her when she woke up crying in the middle of the night. It happened more and more often during the daytime as well, and when she finally had one of her 'attacks', as her mother called them, while she was outside playing, she was strictly forbidden to leave the house until she was better. What was worse, she'd seen the way her friends looked at her, scared, almost repulsed by her unexplainable symptoms.

She noticed how her mother and father whispered about her when they thought she wasn't looking, and their solemn, confused expressions as they watched her. Her brother and sister still tried to comfort her, but even that stopped when her parents moved them out of her room, afraid they'd be affected by whatever was plaguing their eldest daughter.

There was talk of bringing a doctor to see her, though they could hardly afford one. Or, and for some reason this made Road shudder in fear, a priest to exorcise her, because with no physical ailments her attacks could hardly be a human malady, could they?

She spent her time weeping in a corner of her room, wondering what she'd done wrong to deserve this. The laughter from outside mocked her now. She hid away from the sun pouring in through the cracks between the curtains because it didn't seem to be quite real, and her tan slowly faded away until her skin was pale once more.

There were times when she didn't recognize her parents anymore, seeing instead the faces full of hatred from her dreams. Her nightmares spilled over into her waking world until at times she couldn't tell them apart.

And one night, when the pain in her head seemed to be about to split it apart, she slowly dragged herself to the bathroom to splash water over her face. She stopped, eyes growing wide as she saw that the water dripping down off her face into the basin was red.

She looked at her fingers in horror to see them covered in blood, and as she raised her eyes to the cracked mirror she clasped her hands to her mouth to stifle her screams. Cut deeply into her forehead was a row of crosses, the wounds looking fresh and angry.

Falling to the floor in shock she curled her arms around herself tightly, and a dark hidden part of herself, seething with hatred that she was afraid to acknowledge, made her curse a God she no longer trusted to save her.


End file.
